The Egyptian Elections and the Arab Spring, with Kira Jumet

Date: April 19, 2018

Time: Noon

Location: Global Collaboratory (Eggers 060)

Carol Becker Middle East Security Speaker Series

Kira Jumet is Assistant Professor of Government at Hamilton College. Her research focuses on protest mobilization leading up to and during the 2011 and 2013 Egyptian uprisings, including the relationship between emotions and protest participation. Her most recent book is Contesting the Repressive State: Why Ordinary Egyptians Protested During the Arab Spring (Oxford University Press, 2017).

In her book Jumet asks, “Why and how did thousands of Egyptian citizens suddenly take to the streets against the Mubarak regime in January 2011?” With insights based on 170 interviews conducted in Egypt during the Arab Spring, she argues that individuals are rational actors and their decisions to protest or not protest are based on the intersection of three factors: political opportunity structures, mobilizing structures, and framing processes.

Reggie Govan, the former Chief Counsel of the FAA, played an integral role shaping public policy at the cutting edge of aviation technology, and he has a deep understanding of the impact of rapidly evolving innovative technology systems and operations on the regulatory environment. He is one of the architects of today’s regulatory framework for expanding commercial drone operations, ensuring counter-drone security, and expanding performance-based rulemaking.

Govan is an advocate for a comprehensive reconsideration of the relative roles of federal, state, local, and tribal governments and of private industry to support low-altitude commercial drone operations.

Before joining the FAA, Govan served for 14 years as a corporate counsel with responsibility for a broad range of compliance issues as well as a Counsel to committees in the US House of Representatives and Senate. He also is a seasoned litigator.

Location: Feinberg Lecture Hall (Dineen 360)

Laurie Brown Hobart, Former Assistant General Counsel, US Intelligence Community, and Assistant Teaching Professor, SU College of Law

W. George Jameson is a consultant, attorney, lecturer, and author on matters relating to intelligence and national security operations, policy, and law. He founded Jameson Consulting to provide independent counsel and advice to corporate and government clients and others on matters relating to national and international security, operations and business development, risk management, mediation, and governance. Jameson also serves as an Adjunct Staff member at the RAND Corporation.

Jameson also is Chairman and President, Council on Intelligence Issues, a non-profit organization he co-founded to educate the public on intelligence and other national security issues and to provide information about legal resources to CIA and other intelligence officers who need assistance.

Jameson retired from the Central Intelligence Agency in 2009 after 33 years of Government service. Awards include the CIA Director’s Award and Distinguished Career Intelligence Medal. As the CIA’s first Director of the Office of Policy and Corporate Coordination, Office of the CIA Director (2006-2009), Jameson established an integrated capability to address interagency national security policy matters, and he led CIA efforts on revision of Executive Order 12333 governing intelligence.

He previously served as the Senior Counsel for Intelligence Community Affairs in the CIA’s Office of General Counsel (2005-2006), advising on intelligence reform and implementation.

DATE: Oct. 2, 2017

TIME: 5:30 p.m. – 6:30 p.m.

LOCATION: Eggers Hall Rm 220 (Strasser Legacy Room)

Reception to follow.

A lecture sponsored by The Howard and Louise Phanstiel Chair and co-sponsored with the Institute for National Security and Counterterrorism; Institute for the Study of the Judiciary, Politics, and the Media; and Campbell Public Affairs Institute.

Eric Schmitt is a Pulitzer Prize Winning journalist covering terrorism and national security for The New York Times. Since 2007, he has reported on terrorism issues, with assignments to Pakistan, Afghanistan, North Africa, Southeast Asia, among others. He is the co-author, with The Times’s Thom Shanker, of Counterstrike: The Untold Story of America’s Secret Campaign Against Al Qaeda, published in 2011.

The conflict in Kashmir is among the long-standing political conflicts in the world. It has taken a heavy toll on lives, on sanity and on the idea of normalcy. The film Khoon Diy Baarav made over nine years, enters the vexed political scenario in Kashmir through the lives of families of the victims of enforced disappearances. It explores memory as a mode of resistance, constantly confronting reality and morphing from the personal to the political, the individual to the collective.

Yonah Jeremy Bob is a foreign affairs lecturer and Intelligence, Terrorism, and Legal Analyst for The Jerusalem Post. He has been speaking professionally since 2000 in the US, Canada, and Israel, addressing the peace process, security issues, Mossad, CIA and Shin Bet, Iran, war crimes allegations, BDS, cyber and drone warfare, politics, international law and war, the Israeli Supreme Court, and more.

A lawyer in both Israel and the US, Bob has previously worked for the IDF Legal Division, the Israeli Foreign Ministry, and the Israeli Justice Ministry. He has been interviewed on and provided analysis to CNN, BBC, Al Jazeera, The Washington Post, ABC Radio (Australia), TRT Turkish TV, Sky News, Reuters, Russia Today, KABC Radio (Los Angeles), and Voice of America.

Date: Oct. 24, 2017

Time: Noon

Location: Global Collaboratory (Eggers 060)

David F. Everett Postconflict Reconstruction Speaker Series

“Designing Coercive Institutions in Post-Conflict Settings” will explore the trade-offs policymakers face in designing coercive institutions in the aftermath of conflict. In particular, it will show how aspects of security sector reform thought to reduce the likelihood that war resumes can inadvertently increase the risk of coups d’état, and identify concrete strategies to mitigate this risk.

Erica De Bruin is an Assistant Professor of Government at Hamilton College, where she studies international security and civil-military relations. Her research focuses on the dynamics of military coups, design of coercive institutions, and sources of civilian support for armed groups. It has been published in the Journal of Conflict Resolution and Foreign Affairs online. She worked previously as a Research Associate in U.S. Foreign Policy at the Council on Foreign Relations and the New America Foundation in Washington, DC.

NEW DATE!

In partnership with Emory University, George Washington University, and the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Strategic Partnerships with Colleges and Universities—and with feedback from state and federal policymakers—graduate students in the College of Law and Maxwell School will share findings from their research on international terrorism and violent extremism.

Topics include:

The role of the UN in crafting international counterterrorism policy.

Women’s leadership role in terrorist organizations.

The importance of anti-extremist K-12 educational programs, such as Holocaust and atrocity education.

Cross-cultural perspectives on what works in other settings (e.g., Israel, Egypt, Indonesia, Belgium, etc.).

The experience of vulnerable communities with CVE in the United States (e.g., Somali communities in Minnesota).

The challenge of implementing counterterrorist and counter-extremist laws and statutes.

The role of “hard” and “soft” power CVE mechanisms, including drones.

This capstone research has been developed under the guidance of INSCT Director of Research Corri Zoli and INSCT’s National Security and Counterterrorism Research Center (LAW 822), a working laboratory for contemporary national and international security law and policy challenges.

Graduate Student Contributions to Policy Solutions

Both professors William Banks and Corri Zoli were tapped by DHS as subject matter experts, along with Emory Law Professor Laurie Blank and George Washington Center for Cyber and Homeland Security Deputy Director Seamus Hughes, to provide recommendations to DHS Secretary John F. Kelly for improving strategic partnerships with colleges, universities, and the K-12 communities in fostering CVE-related academic research and programming. Students conducted the grounding research to develop these recommendations, which have been submitted to the DHS Academic Advisory Council (HSAAC) and to Secretary Kelly.

DHS & Countering Violent Extremism

While the subject of important social science debate, DHS draws on federal law to define a “violent extremist” as “individuals who support or commit ideologically-motivated violence to further political goals,” and “violent extremism” as “an unpredictable threat from a range of groups and individuals, including domestic terrorists and homegrown violent extremists.”

On this issue, DHS’s priority is on countering violent extremism (CVE)—building stronger, safer, resilient communities; addressing all forms of violent extremism, regardless of ideology; and preventing violence by focusing not on radical thought or speech, but on educating communities about the threat of recruitment, radicalization to violence, and innovative community responses.

Much of this work has been initiated by the US Office for Community Partnerships, whose mission is to develop and implement a full range of partnerships to support and enhance efforts by key stakeholders to prevent radicalization and recruitment to violence by terrorist organizations. Engaging the higher education community is part of these efforts in preventing violent extremism and strengthening community partnerships for addressing violent extremism. The Homeland Security Academic Advisory Council (HSAAC) and the Academic Subcommittee on CVE are designed to help leverage academic expertise for these efforts.